Damn. I was afraid they were going to ask me something like this. Developing new weapon technology was the last thing Jessica wanted to be involved with. She hoped they wouldn’t hold a candid answer against her. “To be honest, I would prefer not to work in the development of new weapons. If I can aid in areas other than that, I would be happy to do so.”
She detected an upward twitch at the corner of his mouth. Is that a hint of a smile? Am I really going to get this job?
“Our current operations are extremely sensitive and require the utmost discretion and secrecy. Are you willing to disappear from society for the next ten years to assist in classified experiments so you may pursue your thesis?”
Ten years? She would be in her thirties by then, an old woman. Still, her parents wouldn’t miss her. If she left, they could spend more on nickel slots. Her so-called friends would only miss her up until the next big party—then they’d make new best friends and forget about her. Ten years engaging in her passion for science in exchange for alienating herself from the outside world? I tend to be a recluse anyway. At least I can get paid for it and potentially make the world a better place.
The colonel was waiting patiently for her answer.
“I am willing, sir,” she replied.
“You have until tomorrow morning to change your mind. If you choose to accept the position, be at the executive terminal of McCarran Airport at eight a.m.” The colonel made a notation on one of the forms neatly stacked in front of him. He then added, “At the end of your service, the government will pay your outstanding student loan, and after five years, your sterilization will be reversed. You will not be permitted to bring any belongings other than hard copy notes pertaining to your thesis. Before boarding the plane, you will be required to take an oath of non-disclosure.”
The colonel stood, extending his hand to end the hiring interview. Jessica rose and returned the colonel’s firm grip. “Thank you, sir,” she said. She smiled, knowing her path in life now had a direction.
***
Late the next morning, Jessica found herself on a sun-bleached airstrip at what the public believed was an abandoned military base. Her history classes had taught her that the base had been mothballed because of radiation fallout from early aboveground nuclear testing as well as toxic contamination from the first stealth aircraft programs. Conspiracy theorists, however, claimed the government used the base to test alien technology, including working spacecraft. Of course, all of this was categorically denied.
Prototype stealth aircraft and spy planes had once graced the massive hangars; now they served as a haven for dust and scorpions. Jessica patiently endured an orientation and tour of the base. Ominous pictographic signs forbade her from venturing near pits in which toxic materials had been dumped, burned, or stored. The only interesting relic of the tour wasn’t something her tour guide showed her, just a curiosity that caught her attention—a name and date scrawled in the gritty concrete of the oldest hangar:
Jack the Ripper 2/14/55.
CHAPTER 7
Shadowed by two armed guards and her supervisor, Jessica presented security credentials to an elevator control pad. Only two buttons were available inside the elevator: up and down. She pushed the down button.
Today marked her fiftieth day of employment, but it was her first time taking this descent. As the elevator dropped, her anxiety level rose. With no way to count floors, her imagination took over. Her ears popped, and still they dropped.
The guards swallowed and glanced at her supervisor, an ancient man in his ninth decade of life. He rarely spoke, opting instead to hand her almost illegible written instructions or—to her frustration—to simply point in the direction he wished her to go and wait until she figured out his intention.
When at last the elevator stopped and the doors opened, he pointed “out”—one of his easier commands to decipher.
Five finger points later, as they strolled through a maze of corridors and unfamiliar faces, they came to a dead end. A vault door with no recognizable handle, hinges, or keypad of any kind stood closed before her. The eccentric old man merely pointed to it.
Jessica stepped closer, raising up on her tiptoes to examine the top, then bent to a knee to check the bottom, looking for some hidden locking mechanism. Finding none, she glanced back to see the old man smiling at her, as if his secret door held great humor.
Words of wisdom from Jessica’s philosophy professor entered her thoughts: Try before you pry. She stood, and without looking away from the old man’s eyes, pushed on the cold steel surface with her palm. She was rewarded by the old man’s beaming smile and a door that swung open with little effort.
“Well done, young woman. Please step inside,” the old man said without pointing. The genuine praise in his voice shocked her more than hearing him actually speak.
A short walkway led to a narrow door, its top slanting toward her. Without waiting for him to point, she touched it; it slid up to disappear in the low ceiling.
A dim polyhedral-shaped room opened before her like an immense, hollow diamond. All along the interior surface, sparkling points of light moved in perpetually random patterns. She traced the source of the lights to a softball-sized sphere hovering over a stout reclining chair on a pedestal in the center of the room.
Jessica moved to examine the sphere closer. A strong odor of cheap men’s cologne tickled her nose. Before she could say anything, the old man said, “You have thirty minutes. Good luck,” and touched the door. It closed softly, leaving her alone with a head full of questions.
Great. Another test to add to her workload.
With her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, she walked a cramped circle around the perimeter of the room. She could find nothing to explain what was levitating the sphere, and she could identify no reason for the room’s unusual shape. She turned her attention to the chair. Indentations in the thick padding hinted that it was designed for extended periods of use. It possessed a standard data entry touchpad mounted on a swing arm for use while seated, along with a miniature view monitor, its screen dark and unresponsive. There was no ON switch.
Sitting in the well-worn chair seemed the reasonable thing to do, so she sat. And as she pulled the touchpad to a working position, the walls vanished into a seamless darkness and the sphere projected a three-dimensional holographic star field all around her.
Overwhelmed by a surge of acute vertigo, Jessica squeezed the arms of the chair with a white-knuckled grip. She hovered in space with no visual reference for up-down orientation. It was just space, her chair, and the sphere.
A small octagonal cursor trailed along the star field wherever she looked. The chair smoothly rotated and tilted, centering on her field of view when she moved her head to mark a star. She soon realized that face direction turned the chair while eye movements altered the cursor. This virtual reality technology was so far beyond civilian consumer level that Jessica’s mind spun with possible applications for it.
She selected a twinkling star and tapped the question mark symbol on her pad. A holographic information screen flashed to life in front of her. Spica, brightest star in the constellation Virgo, a blue giant 260 light years from Earth. Jessica stared at the flashing cursor circling the star. They wouldn’t go to the trouble of developing cutting-edge secret technology just to bury a planetarium in the desert. There had to be more to this thing.
A few glowing pictograms were arranged well below the text on Spica. Jessica selected one labeled “Current Projects.” With a touch of her finger through the hologram, a constellation of information clusters replaced the star data: Atomic Particles, Lunar Sensors, Precision Weapons, Satellites, Fusion Research, Space Exploration, Stealth Limitations, and Personal.
It’s no wonder the chair had seen so much use. I could spend weeks in here and never satisfy my curiosity.
She dug deeper into the Fusion Research cluster. It revealed that they had not only discovered its secret but also how to regulate and maintain the reac
tion. Applied uses were still forthcoming. Bubbling with excitement, Jessica opened up Space Exploration next. It had been recently accessed, according to the security timestamp. Inside were clusters on Pioneer, Voyager, Cassini, Viking, Pathfinder, and others. Jessica recognized them as early NASA-launched space exploration vehicles that had been reported as either nonfunctioning, lost, or destroyed.
Jessica touched Voyager I, which had the same access timestamp as the root cluster. Her chair immediately shifted to face a blinking blue disc in the star field—no doubt the current position of the spacecraft. According to the display, the craft still actively transmitted data: the right half of her holographic screen showed a star field from Voyager’s camera feed, and a digital date and time readout ticked away with blurring microseconds. The thing was ancient by current technological standards, and the fact that any part of it still functioned amazed her. And she couldn’t help but wonder why they had bothered to deceive the public all these years in claiming that Voyager was lost.
It was all very fascinating, but Jessica still struggled to understand the point of all this. It must have taken billions of dollars to build this facility and who knew how much to maintain it. She shook her head at the sheer scope of wasteful government spending as she tapped one of the scroll arrows below the camera feed.
The image shifted immediately.
Jessica blinked in surprise; it took her a moment to digest what had just happened. As she scrolled the camera around its range of motion, it came to her. Voyager I was over fifteen billion miles away from Earth. It would take almost twenty-four hours for any signal to reach it, let alone for an image to be transmitted. Yet the commands she was giving to the spacecraft were executed immediately. Whatever technology was at work here was achieving faster-than-light communication, and to Jessica’s cynical mind, that made it ridiculously beyond the impossible. Then again, if it was legitimate, it certainly justified the secrecy and the oath she had taken to be here.
She checked the other spacecraft data feeds and found them all to have the same instantaneous responses. Her brief scan of the other folders proved enlightening but had nowhere near the impact of FTL communication and fusion.
That left only the personal folder. It was unlocked, and it begged to be opened; its timestamp showed it to be the last file accessed prior to her entering. Jessica reached out to touch it, but paused to work through her conflicting emotions. She had clearance for top secret level work and was now inside what was perhaps the most secret place on the base. Yet, it didn’t feel right for her to peek inside someone’s personal folder.
An empty red hourglass icon flashed before her. I guess my thirty minutes are up. She withdrew her hand, and as she pushed the keyboard back to its original position, the star field and holographic screen disappeared, leaving Jessica once more anchored in the solid confines of the polyhedral chamber.
She rose and walked to the door, which once again slid upward as she palmed it. Even the locking mechanism held a secret. She took one last look at the sparkling sphere, then left with new hope for the limitless possibilities it represented.
CHAPTER 8
The day after Jessica’s “test,” two uniformed military police officers entered the accelerator control analysis lab. Their eyes rapidly scanned faces until finally locking on target.
“Jessica Stafford?” one asked.
“Yes?” Jessica replied without looking up from her screen, completely absorbed in a rhythm of data input.
“Come with us. Leave the lab coat.”
Jessica blinked until the officer’s words sank in, still not fully registering their meaning. She stood and draped her lab coat on the chair. “What’s this about?”
“Our orders are to escort you to the colonel,” the officer said, lifting a hand to his sidearm.
The hairs on the back of Jessica’s neck prickled in alarm. Coldly emotionless faces and postures like coiled snakes warned her not to provoke these men. With arms limp at her sides, Jessica slowly walked with them out of the facility, to a waiting helicopter.
Jessica pinched the bridge of her nose with eyes closed in concentration as the helicopter lifted off the ground. She had done something wrong. That had to be the reason for this. But nothing came to mind, and the MPs never said a word. Fear prevented her from even making eye contact with them, but she was certain they never so much as blinked under the tension of the stuffy flight back to the base. They extended hands to assist her to the ground upon landing, then shadowed her to the colonel’s office as if she might try to flee.
“Sit, Miss Stafford,” the colonel commanded in a tone that would make a mountain tremble. “It has been brought to my attention that you have been falsifying data on a critical research project.”
Jessica opened her mouth to speak. The colonel immediately cut her off with a terse hand gesture. “This isn’t a forum for discussion. I have documented proof of your actions. Due to the sensitive nature of our business here, we cannot tolerate employees who lack integrity. Your contract is terminated, effective immediately.”
Jessica closed her eyes and shakily expelled air through her nose. This couldn’t be happening. Her eyes stung. This wasn’t the place for tears. She bit the inside of her lip to fend them off.
“Do you understand why you are being terminated?” asked the colonel.
“No! This has to be a mistake. Falsifying data? What would I have to gain by such a thing?”
The colonel’s face hardened into an unforgiving wall. His words flowed without mercy. “It’s not so much what you have to gain as it is about what we have to lose. We can’t afford to take the chance. You are fired. Do you understand?”
They made up their minds before they even brought me here. Jessica knew her every argument would be dismissed, and her pride would not allow begging. “Yes, sir,” she replied, lowering her head.
“Do you have any questions?” the colonel asked. But his tone issued a command: Don’t ask any questions.
“No, sir,” she answered.
“Read this aloud and sign it. Again.” The colonel slid a document to Jessica. As his fingers withdrew, she saw it was the same non-disclosure agreement she had signed less than two months ago.
Jessica read aloud. “I understand, under penalty of lifetime, solitary imprisonment, that I may not divulge, discuss, or record in any manner the nature of the work that I participated in or may have witnessed while in the employment of the United States. Only a person presenting military credentials with the code name ‘Jack the Ripper’ may authorize me to break this oath.” She signed on the line marked with a red X, still silently hoping the colonel would change his mind and tell her it was all a joke.
“You will be provided a change of clothes and escorted off the premises. From there, you will be driven back to Las Vegas. The rest is up to you. Dismissed.”
The colonel retrieved the document and added his own signature, then acted as if Jessica ceased to exist. The angular lines of his signature on her discharge papers cut a permanent scar on her future.
The guards who had been standing at attention behind her stepped forward to escort her out. Jessica followed the lead guard while the other trailed. This must be what it’s like marching to face a firing squad, she thought. And in a sense, that was exactly what she was doing. They were tossing her back into civilization, and that was almost as deadly for someone with a black mark of dishonor on their record. The fact that almost everyone else on the planet shunned any opportunity to be honorable mattered not. She had committed the unforgiveable sin of being caught—and that made her an inferior breed. Regardless of her abilities, few would be inclined to give her another chance. Fewer still would ever believe the tragic truth—that she was innocent.
***
As soon as the trailing escort left the office, a man with graying hair and a well-tailored suit entered from the colonel’s private sitting area.
“You should start evacuating as soon as they’re gone,” he said.
&n
bsp; The colonel’s countenance was that of a man who had just taken a beating. “You’re a real bastard, Jack.”
“Signatures don’t give value to an oath, only actions,” Jack said. “You of all people should know that by now.”
“The fact that I know exactly what is going through her head at this moment doesn’t make it any easier,” the colonel declared.
“Only those of the finest moral character ever make it through the Lazar Test, my friend. As much as we need the likes of Jessica, we have to be certain.”
“She’s a good kid. Nothing like that piece of work we processed yesterday. Insolent prick. I wanted to shoot him.”
“I’ll add your name to the list,” Jack said.
CHAPTER 9
Sebastian had no earthly idea how they had returned him to the States after losing consciousness from that drugged bullet. A puncture scar in the center of his chest and the rock in his shoe were the only tangible items he’d managed to return with. The rock might be valuable if he ever wanted to discover the location of the secret cavern—although it was a long shot. Still, he had hollowed out a pocket under the insole of his shoe to keep it safe.
After his return, he had spent the better part of seven months debriefing higher pay grades on his mission findings and their sociopolitical ramifications. When the agency at last gave him the authority to continue analyzing the potential consequences of the discovery, he insisted that they first reveal their other covert operations—in order for him to better formulate a contingency plan if the information became public. Somewhat to his surprise, they did. And when he encountered the room housing faster-than-light and fusion technology, he could barely contain his excitement. The classified folder he peeked into contained his own assessment of the artifact, along with several scientists’ strong recommendations that it not be moved from its present location until all dangers could be ruled out. But it offered nothing regarding the artifact’s location.
The Prometheus Effect Page 4
